Abstract

An old man and his ten ghosts love to read and listen to stories. A buzzard, who had been watching them read stories every day, asks one little ghost to read stories to his friend who lives deep in the forest. The friend is a big, black, scary-looking ghost who lives in an old, soot-covered house in the dim forest. The big ghost finds the little ghost's stories interesting, so he is reluctant to let her go home. Worried, the old man and the nine ghosts come to pick her up, but the lonely big ghost starts crying, yelling, "I don't want you to go home!" and the house becomes sticky with tears and soot! "Anyway, let's all do a big cleaning together." This is an exhilarating story about meeting the soot ghost who is sensitive to the cold, a crybaby, and loves to talk, and the big cleaning.

Author’s Information

Born in Fukuoka Prefecture in 1940. Picture book author and painter.
His works include the "Giant Octopus Maston" series (Gyosei), "Let's Play Mummy" and "Knock and Knock" (PHP Institute), "A Walk with Dad" and "Tsutomu and the Magic Bus" (Kyoiku Gageki), "The Little Bear and the Two Monsters" (Doshinsha), and the "10 Ghosts" series (Hikari no Kuni).
He won the Elba Award at the Bologna Children's Book Fair for "The Ghost and the Children's King" (PHP Institute), and the 29th Hirosuke Fairy Tale Award for "Tsutomu and the Cat's Day Fairy" (Komine Shoten).